Tag: Mamata Banerjee

  • Writer, painter, indomitable fighter Mamata Banerjee faces her biggest political challenge at Nandigram

    By ANI
    NANDIGRAM: Mamata Banerjee, the indomitable fighter clad in a white sari, is a writer, poet and painter who had ended the decades-long rule of the Left Front but after two successive terms faces a major challenge to her political career.

    Striving to prove that “Bangla nijer meyekei chaye” (Bengal wants its own daughter), she continues her stride in the political spectrum of the nation that began in 1975 making the headlines by dancing on the car of the most influential leaders of that time Jayaprakash Narayan as a mark of protest.

    Forty-six years have passed since then; her fighting spirits continue to shine in Indian politics. She is ‘Nation’s Didi’ Mamata Banerjee.

    She became the chief minister of West Bengal in 2011 by ending the 34-year-long CPI(M) regime, one of the longest-serving elected governments in the world. Now after ruling the state for two successive terms, the 2021 poll battle is surely not a cakewalk for her. It is the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that trespassed her dominion after gaining overwhelming results from the state in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. And, the emergence of the Left-Congress-ISF alliance has made the situation more complicated for her.

    Banerjee endorses her governance as the rule of three ‘M’s, that is, ‘Maa’, ‘Mati’ and ‘Manush’ (mother, soil and people). But, the Bengal elections have another 3M factor this time, that is, ‘Mamata’, ‘Modi’ and ‘Muslim’. So, Banerjee’s challenge is to counter Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity in Bengal at one side and regain her support base of the minority community that might step out with the Left-Congress-ISF alliance.

    Now making the battle of power more interesting, Mamata has chosen Nandigram over her home turf Bhabanipur seat this time to test her fate in the 2021 elections. It was the agitation in Nandigram and Singur against the Left government’s land acquisition policies that made Mamata Banerjee the Chief Minister of West Bengal.

    Now not just Bengal, but the country’s eye is on Nandigram that will witness the most high-profile contest on April 1 with the chief minister taking on her former ministerial colleague Suvendu Adhikari, who had joined the BJP in December last year.

    Further, Banerjee’s poll campaign this time got a new dimension with a wheelchair after she suffered an injury earlier this month while campaigning in Nandigram.

    Not to mention, the West Bengal Chief Minister spared no poll stage to launch scathing attacks on Prime Minister Modi. However, the Modi-Mamata battle was quite visible even before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. She played an instrumental role in bringing together all opposition parties against the Centre prior to the 2019 general elections. The seventh-term MP also has been among the first key figures who heavily criticised the central government in issues starting from demonetisation to Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and lockdown to fuel prices. Her fighting spirit and mass appeal have made her one the tallest opposition figures in the current political arena.

    Mamata Banerjee started her political career as a Youth Congress worker in the 1970s. She quickly rose the ranks and became the general secretary of Mahila Congress and later All India Youth Congress. In 1984 she was elected as a member of parliament in the 8th Lok Sabha becoming one of India’s youngest parliamentarians. She founded the All India Trinamool Congress in 1997 after a disagreement with Congress.

    Mamata Banerjee worked with three Prime Ministers including PV Narasimha Rao, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Dr Manmohan Singh. She had been a Union Minister in both National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and United Progressive Alliance (UPA) governments and held portfolios like Human Resource Development, Youth Affairs and Sports, Women and Child Development, Coal and Mines and the Railways. Notably, she was the first woman to become a railway minister in the country. The Time Magazine named her among the 100 most influential people in the world in 2012.

    Hailing from a lower-middle-class family, Mamata Banerjee worked as a milk booth vendor to battle poverty. Her father passed away due to the lack of treatment when she was just 17. The fighter in her never let the barriers dominate her. She continued her education and earned a Bachelor’s degree in History, a Master’s degree in Islamic History and degrees in Education and Law from the University of Calcutta. She also worked as a stenographer and a private tutor before joining full-time politics.Another disposition of Mamata Banerjee is her minimalist lifestyle. Despite being the Chief Minister, she still lives in her ancestral terracotta-tiled roof house at Kolkata’s Harish Chatterjee Street. White cotton sarees having mono-colour borders and slippers are all that define the fashion statement of Mamata Banerjee.

    The West Bengal Chief Minister is also a self-taught painter, poet and writer. She has authored more than 100 books. She is also tech-savvy and remains active on social media. The Trinamool Supremo is also known for her walkathons or marches. Here it needs to be mentioned that she walks five-six kilometres on a treadmill every day. When it comes to evening snack time, she likes to have tea, puffed rice and ‘aloo chop’.

    The second phase of the West Bengal Assembly polls is scheduled for April 1. In phase-II, 30 seats covering a segment of South 24 Parganas, Bankura, Purba Medinipur and Paschim Medinipur will go to polls to decide the fate of 171 candidates including 19 women.

    Meanwhile, the first phase of the West Bengal Assembly elections concluded with an estimated 79.79 per cent voter turnout on Saturday.

    In the first phase, 30 seats covering all Assembly constituencies from the districts of Purulia and Jhargram and a segment of Bankura, Purba Medinipur and Paschim Medinipur went to polls.

  • Bengal polls: Mamata will lose at Nandigram, claims Suvendu after casting vote

    By PTI
    NANDIGRAM: BJP’s heavyweight Nandigram candidate Suvendu Adhikary cast his vote soon after polling began on Thursday morning.

    Riding a bike, Adhikari went to the Nandanayak Bar Primary School around 7.30 to cast his vote.

    Speaking to reporters, he said that he was confident that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who is contesting the elections against him from the Nandigram seat, will lose the polls.

    “I have a very old relationship with the people of the area. I have a personal relationship with almost every person in Nandigram. Pretty confident that I will win the election,” Adhikari said.

    “Entire villages have come out to vote in favour of the BJP,” he added.

    Adhikari said that he went to the polling booth on a bike as the road was too narrow for a car.

    “I will urge the people to come out early and cast their votes. There were reports of problems at some booths but those have now been solved. The polling is happening peacefully,” he said.

    He said that he will try to visit all the booths in the constituency.

    Further, the BJP leader claimed that the TMC has failed to depute agents in all the booths.

    “It shows that Mamata Banerjee will not be able to win the elections,” he said.

    Adhikari exercised his franchise for the first time in Nandigram after becoming a voter of the constituency ahead of the elections.

  • Suvendu Adhikari vs Mamata Banerjee: Nandigram talking point across Bengal

    Express News Service
    BOLPUR/SUIRI/RAMPURHAT,BIRBHUM:  Mamata Banerjee lit up Nandigram with a slogan that perhaps encapsulates where West Bengal is right now, in terms of the gap between its reality and its desire. “Cool cool Trinamool, thanda thanda cool, vote paabe jora phool,” she thundered, with an elan that TV advertising professionals would envy. Jora phool is the grass flower associated with the West Bengal Chief Minister’s party, the Trinamool. Will it get the votes? Therein hangs a tale.

    Now, West Bengal may well be renamed Nandigram. You must of course overlook a few distractions  like Amit Shah claiming a clean sweep, in arid Purulia. Or Mamata Banerjee actually demanding that the PM’s visa and passport be cancelled for having visited Orakandi in Bangladesh. Those distractions are quite a handful for an Assembly election, you think? Yes. But then, this is West Bengal.

    A little detour: Orakandi is revered by the Matua community, quite a vital component of the voters in three Bengal districts. Nobody here, among the intelligentsia, quite likes the fact that the name of caste has been taken. Bengal’s politics has always avoided it. And that’s the BJP’s opening. Bengal still speaks a universal language. It still responds to resonating phrases like ‘Amar Naam, Tomar Naam, Nandigram, Nandigram…’

    That’s not just a slogan, by the way. Kolkata, Howrah, Hooghly, Burdwan, Birbhum, 24 Parganas—districts which vote in the third and fourth phases or later seem somewhat indifferent about what happens to their own constituencies. But they’re not indifferent about Nandigram. Anywhere and everywhere, it’s difficult to get people focused on any other issue. The small talk all around— the small tea shops, the small man walking back after his day’s work in those rich rice fields invariably focuses on that one thing.

    It’s the Big Fight. The questions are: Is Didi panicking? Will Suvendu Adhikari pull it off ? Will Nandigram again be the turning point of Bengal’s political history? It’s quite the local thriller. If you so much as mildly declare that you have been to the epicentre and have come out in one piece, you may very well get a discount at a sweet shop, or at Sonajuri haat, Santiniketan. 

    Old stories form part of new narrative

    “What did you see there? Tell us, please. You can pay me later!” Dulal Basak, with that incredulous look on his face, could be the face of the rest of Bengal. He has that look of having accidentally met an astronaut just back from the moon.

    Myths abound. That the Adhikaris virtually own Nandigram. That Didi is liberating it the second time over. Or just the opposite: that TMC atrocities have touched such heights that only the BJP can save the people. Nandigram, seven years since the violence against that old farmland acquisition felled even a Left government, is back haunting public memory.

    For all the contrary feelings that thought may evoke, it’s also influencing voting decisions across districts. Perhaps not even the voter knows where her finger may pass, such are the sentiments here. It’s rich political drama.

    Even the long-forgotten Laxman Seth, the erstwhile CPI-M MLA, the villain of the piece in 2007, under whose watch the police firing took place in which over a dozen got killed in 2007, the man you could arguably blame for the Left’s near comatose state in India…even he has come out of the woodwork. And he’s not even contesting, but that’s half the story.

    Now, Laxman Seth was called a ‘harmand’ (goon) those days, maybe not without reason. And he was not heard of after a failed attempt to revive his political career in 2019, when he contested the Tamluk parliamentary seat on a Congress ticket. Congress? Yes. The CPI-M had expelled him in 2014, and he had then joined the BJP, before his compass shifted again. Tamluk is his old fort, the place where he’d defeated Sisir Adhikari in 2004. No relation to Suvendu, you ask? Of course, he’s the father, also old Congress stock, was MoS for rural development by the way under Manmohan Singh.

    Why are these old stories important? Because they’re part of the narrative in 2021. It’s not so much party politics, as much as the underlying economic issues. Laxman Seth has been giving interviews. And been touching a chord with a rural Bengal that, contrarily, also wants industrialisation. A Bengal that doesn’t want to go to Kerala and Bangalore just to have a job.

    “All political parties are the same. When they first come to power, they make promises of a better system, but later the same bad elements come to rule the roost,” says Ranjit Das, a voter in Bolpur constituency in Birbhum. He cites the Nandigram trajectory and draws parallels with the local politics in his constituency.

    This disillusionment is commonly heard in and around the Visva Bharati campus, perhaps even more keenly in the crafts markets adjacent to Santiniketan. The artisanal markets that dot the now burgeoning campus city may have only an ironic resemblance with things that Tagore said. The poet is mostly to be found caged in photo frames, sold at every street corner. He wanted the world to come to the country. In a way, the country wants the same.

    The elections themselves are a local Mahabharata—a distraction, almost. Who has joined whom? That’s the talk everywhere. The protagonists of Nandigram or the general trend of TMC MLAs and other sundry heavyweights switching camps, that’s what everyone talks about. This is the place that gave India Mir Jafar.

    If Purba Medinipur—of which Nandigram is one of the 16 Assembly constituencies is seen as Adhikari turf, Birbhum’s 11 Assembly constituencies are considered a stronghold of the TMC. If Suvendu, and his father Sisir in particular, have a deep hold over that neck of the woods, Birbhum is the playfield of TMC district in charge Anubrata Mandal, a local toughie.

    The Adhikharis were perceived to be the last word in their bastion, while they were in TMC Mamata allowed their writ to run. (It’s just coincidental that they happen to be on the other side now.) But that federal approach is true about Birbhum too, they say. Whether in Rampur, Siuri or Santiniketan, the refrain is that “she’s too indulgent of ” Anubrata Mandal. In short, what the Adhikaris are or were to Nandigram, Mandal is to Birbhum. “Not a leaf moves without him raising his finger,” they say.

    Didi’s allegation that it was the Adhikaris who got the “police in chappals” into Nandigram in 2007 and that’s what led to the mayhem—finds odd resonance here. It’s almost a mythological narrative that gets repeated everywhere. Facts? They belong to another planet. Myths have a self-sustaining life of their own. There are stories about how many got killed, about dead children filled into sacks, about truckloads of dead bodies hidden under vegetables. The mass hysteria around has been reignited, in different ways.

    “Didi allows Anubrata to manage this outpost in the same way,” quips a Visva Bharati lecturer, who would rather not be named. The current V-C here, Bidyut Chakrabarty, makes no secret of his support to the BJP and the Prime Minister. It’s fairly overt. But there’s tangible tension on the ground. It’s often, but not necessarily party-related.

    The young, for one, have no qualms at all. Deepak, a biotech student from the nearby Puralia, feels a “change” would be good for Bengal—it would bring industry and jobs. “We don’t want to go out of the state to look for employment. Bengal should be an industrial leader again. We can’t be doing artisanal work or cottage industry like our parents for all time. There’s no future in small scale,” he says. Maybe Mahatma Gandhi should have been alive to hear his idea of ‘paribartan’.

    Birbhum is of course a TMC fortress, controlled by Mandal with an iron fist. Everyone agrees it’s impregnable. But local street cred is not the only factor. The CAA is an issue here, and it gives the TMC a fillip. Both the Hindus who migrated from then East Bengal and the original Muslim settlers here cite the Assam NRC fiasco. “We may also be thrown out or our names may go missing! Most of us don’t have old papers,” says Subhas. It’s not about religion here, as the national narrative goes, but about the precarity of life that all have faced equally.

    The students at Kalabhavan still have a whiff of Left idealism, and have their own story to tell—one of resistance, and of standing to safeguard Bengal’s cultural ethos. Anirban Ganguly, the BJP Bolpur candidate, rubbishes those as “wayward western thoughts”. Tagore? Keep him to a side. “Our central leaders have closely studied culture and thought process,” claims Ganguly.

    That’s where the aspirational middle class is, even if they’re not big in numbers. One of them, an old neighbour of TMC’s Anubrata Mandal, predicts that the BJP will get 4 out of 11 seats here, and three more after the elections are over! “Khela hobe,” he quips.

  • Mixed response to Mamata’s mid-poll pitch on Opposition unity, BJP hits back at Bengal CM

    By Express News Service
    KOLKATA/NEW DELHI/PATNA/MUMBAI: Accusing the BJP of trying to establish a one-party “authoritarian rule’’ in the country, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday wrote to top Opposition leaders urging them to unite to defend democracy.

    Her letter came ahead of the second phase of Assembly elections in West Bengal and it is being seen as an initiative to drum up Opposition support against the BJP, which is the main rival of the ruling Trinamool Congress in the ongoing polls.

    Her call drew mixed reactions within the Opposition with the Congress choosing to remain silent, though regional parties like the RJD, NC P, AAP and SP extended full support.

    “I strongly believe that that the time has come for a united and effective struggle against the BJP’s attack on democracy and the Constitution. We can win this battle only with the unity of hearts and mind and by presenting a credible alternative to the people of India,’’ she wrote.

    In the three-page letter, Mamata appealed to non-BJP leaders, including Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, ailing NC P founder Sharad Pawar, Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, DMK chief M K Stalin, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik RJD chief Tejashwi Yadav, Andhra Pradesh CM Jagan Mohan Reddy, PDP head Mehbooba Mufti, CPI(ML) chief Dipankar Bhattacharya and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav. She, however, did not write to Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, who had fancied his chances in the past at leading a third front.

    Hitting back at the Bengal CM, BJP on Wednesday said that democracy should be the last word in her dictionary .

    “Democracy should be the last word in @MamataOfficial & @AITCofficial dictionary. Their cadre attack @BJP4Bengal candidates, intimidate voters, capture booths, block all hoardings and at the end leaders preach Democracy,” BJP general secretary (organisation) B L Santhosh tweeted.

    Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot supported Banerjee, saying he has echoed the same issues many times.

    “What Mamta Banerjee has said is right that the central government is working to weaken states. The Centre should think to strengthen the states instead of weakening them,” Gehlot, who is in Assam campaigning for the assembly polls, told PTI over phone.

    He was reacting to a letter written by Banerjee to non-BJP leaders, including Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, wherein she alleged that the Centre-state relations were at its worst since independence.

    As she faces a high-stakes poll battle in West Bengal, Banerjee said the time has come for a “united and effective” struggle against the BJP’s alleged attacks on democracy and the Constitution, and that opposition leaders should try present a “credible alternative” to the people of the country.

    Gehlot asserted that he has raised the same concerns inside and outside the assembly.

    “Democracy in the country is under threat and people should understand its gravity,” he said.

    The senior Congress leader said the Central Bureau of Investigation, Enforcement Directorate, Income Tax department and other agencies are working under pressure from the central government, adding that those who express disagreement are labelled “anti-nationals”.

    PDP president Mehbooba Mufti on Wednesday said it is imperative for the opposition parties in the country to unite in order to protect democracy and its cherished values.

    She also said the need of the hour is to put up a collective fight against the “onslaught”.

    “Agree with @MamataOfficial di that in order to protect our democracy & its cherished values it is imperative for the opposition parties to unite,” the PDP president wrote on Twitter.

    She also shared a copy of her letter written in response to Banerjee’s communication.

    “Thank you for reaching out to me. I share & understand your apprehensions about the central government undermining the federal framework that has been guaranteed by the Indian Constitution,” Mufti said in her response.

    The former J-K chief minister alleged that the recent GNCTD bill is yet another example of how BJP is “bulldozing” its opponents by using its “brute majority” to pass and implement bills.

    “This process started in 2019 with the dismemberment of Jammu and Kashmir and stripping it of its special status which was again a constitutional guarantee. Unfortunately, not many in the opposition used their collective power & voice to oppose this unilateral & illegal step,” Mufti alleged.

    She also referred to the detention of political leaders and alleged harassment by central probe agencies.

    “Therefore, the need of the hour is to unite & put up a collective fight against this onslaught,” she added.

    (With PTI Inputs)

  • Mamata Banerjee scared as she is set to lose Nandigram to BJP: Nadda ahead of polling in constituency

    By Express News Service
    KOLKATA: BJP’s national president JP Nadda said on Wednesday that West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was scared as she has realised that she is set to lose the Nandigram seat to BJP.

    While addressing a rally in Hooghly district, Nadda said, “Mamata didi is scared. She has realised she is losing Nandigram. Suvendu (Adhikari) was elected from here in 2016 Assembly elections. He did not come here as an outsider. It is Mamata who has come and now she will lose here a well.’’

    All eyes in Bengal are focused on Nandigram, the epicenter of the Assembly elections, which is going to the polls on Thursday. Mamata is contesting against her once-trusted lieutenant Suvendu.

    ALSO READ | High polling percentage proof change of guard imminent in West Bengal, says JP Nadda

    Hitting out at Mamata on the issue of women’s safety and lawlessness in Bengal, Nadda said, “West Bengal is number one in terms of kidnapping of women, attempt to murder and unsolved missing cases. Two tribal girls were raped in Jalpaiguri but no action was taken. What have the people raising Maa, Mati, Manush slogan have done for women?”

    Reiterating BJP’s Hindutva rhetoric, Nadda accused Mamata of imposing a “curfew” during the foundation stone laying ceremony of Ram Temple in Ayodhya.

    “Curfew was imposed in Bengal hen Prime Minister Narendra Modi was laying the foundation stone of Ram Temple in Ayodhya. Should we let it continue? Should a grant temple of Lord Ram be made in Ayodhya or not?’’ he asked.  

    The BJP chief reiterated that his party will derail Mamata’s government by bagging more than 200 seats.

    “We will cross the 200-seat target. The people have Bengal have come forward to defeat Mamata Banerjee. They are sending a message against extortion and cut-money,’’ he said.

  • Mamata has lost ground in Bengal, speaking of ‘gotra’ is sign of desperation: Javadekar

    Javadekar claimed that the people of the state have already made up their mind to bring the BJP to power and the Lok Sabha election result indicated the people #39;s will to reject Banerjee.

  • Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot lends support to TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee​; says democracy under threat

    By PTI
    JAIPUR: Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Wednesday supported TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee over her concerns on democracy and the constitution, saying he has echoed the same issues many times.

    “What Mamta Banerjee has said is right that the central government is working to weaken states. The Centre should think to strengthen the states instead of weakening them,” Gehlot, who is in Assam campaigning for the assembly polls, told PTI over phone.

    He was reacting to a letter written by Banerjee to non-BJP leaders, including Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, wherein she alleged that the Centre-state relations were at its worst since independence.

    As she faces a high-stakes poll battle in West Bengal, Banerjee said the time has come for a “united and effective” struggle against the BJP’s alleged attacks on democracy and the Constitution, and that opposition leaders should try present a “credible alternative” to the people of the country.

    Gehlot asserted that he has raised the same concerns inside and outside the assembly.

    “Democracy in the country is under threat and people should understand its gravity,” he said.

    The senior Congress leader said the Central Bureau of Investigation, Enforcement Directorate, Income Tax department and other agencies are working under pressure from the central government, adding that those who express disagreement are labelled ‘anti-nationals’.

  • ‘Time to fight united against BJP’s attack on democracy’: Mamata writes letter to Opposition

    By Online Desk
    West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee wrote a letter to the Opposition leaders on Wednesday asking them to put a ‘united and effective’ struggle against BJP.

    The letter which talks about the ‘assaults’ by BJP and the Centre on democracy, constitutional federalism was written to all Opposition leaders including Sonia Gandhi, Sharad Pawar, MK Stalin, Tejashwi Yadav, Uddhav Thackeray, Arvind Kejriwal, Naveen Patnaik.

    The three page letter comes a day before West Bengal is all set to go for the second phase of polls on Thursday.

    In her letter, Mamata wrote that she ‘strongly believes that the time has come for a united and effective struggle against BJP’s attacks on democracy and Constitution.’The letter talks about the recently passed National Capital Territory of Delhi (Amendment) Bill which gives more power to the Lt. Governor in the Capital over the elected Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP government.

    Mamata Banerjee writes to leaders incl Sonia Gandhi, Sharad Pawar, MK Stalin, Tejashwi Yadav, Uddhav Thackeray, Arvind Kejriwal, Naveen Patnaik stating, “I strongly believe that the time has come for a united & effective struggle against BJP’s attacks on democracy & Constitution” pic.twitter.com/OLp7tDm9pU
    — ANI (@ANI) March 31, 2021

    “You will agree that what BJP has done in Delhi is not an exception, but is increasingly becoming the rule,” wrote Mamata in the letter. 

    “The Lt Governor has been made the undeclared Viceroy of Delhi, acting as a proxy for the home minister and the prime minister,” she said.

    ​All eyes are on battleground Nandigram with the chief minister Banerjee engaged in a fierce contest with her protege-turned-rival Suvendu Adhikari of the BJP.

    (Inputs from ANI)

  • Left govt’s hooliganism is being repeated by BJP: Mamata Banerjee

    By ANI
    HOOGHLY: Ahead of the second phase of the West Bengal Assembly elections, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday said the hooliganism perpetrated by the Left government was being repeated by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

    While speaking at a public rally in Goghat, she said: “I once went to attend a programme in Chamkaitala and we were not allowed to set up a stage for the meeting. We were not allowed to have mics and repeated gunfire was heard in the background. Communist Party of India’s (Marxist) hooliganism is now being replicated by BJP.”

    Banerjee also said there was a conspiracy to murder Trinamool Congress member Ajit Kumar Panja.

    “I had held a meeting at Gopinathpur earlier. After I left for Midnapore, I came to know that CPM had captured the entire area, from Arambag to Goghat and burned down several homes,” she added.

    She also credited herself for creating several development projects in West Bengal.

    “Today, Railways has reached Goghat, this was done by me. BJP and CPI(M) did not create this, but now they are inaugurating these projects. They have no shame!” she remarked.

    In phase two of the elections, a total of 30 Assembly constituencies from the districts of South 24 Parganas, Bankura, Paschim Medinipur and Purba Medinipur will go to polls.

    There are 171 candidates in the fray in phase-II of West Bengal polls, out of which 152 candidates are men while only 19 are women.

    Among these candidates, two are undoubtedly the most prominent figures, that is, Mamata Banerjee and her former ministerial colleague Suvendu Adhikari, who had joined the BJP in December last year.

    Nandigram is all set to witness the most high-profile contest in the second phase where Banerjee and Adhikari are taking on each other. Adhikari had earlier pledged that he will quit politics if he does not defeat Mamata Banerjee by 50,000 votes in Nandigram.  

  • People of village in Nandigram seat hounded out by BJP goons; EC should take note: Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee

    By Express News Service
    KOLKATA:  Mamata Banerjee spares no chance to accuse BJP of wrongdoing. On the last day of campaigning before the second polls on April 1, the West Bengal Chief Minister said the saffron party has  brought in people from adjoining states to terrorise voters.

    She said that people from her constituency were hounded out by BJP goons and urged Election Commission to take note. “Villagers are being hounded out of Balarampur by BJP goons. The EC must ensure their safety,” she said. Mamata was also seen consoling family members of those allegedly hounded out.

    She sounded confident of a massive win. In a veiled threat to her opponent Suvendu Adhikari, Mamata said, “They (police forces from outside) will be here only for a few days. Make no mistake, we will be back and give the betrayers a befitting reply.”

    Mamata also alerted the people of Nandigram of possible attacks. “They (BJP) have plans to kill their own people and pass it off as our handiwork to engineer riots. We have information. Be on guard,” she said.“Nandigram stood united in the battle against forcible land acquisition in which people from all communities participated. Be on guard against any bid to fuel tension by keeping any object in places of worship. We are united.”

    Referring to the controversy over an audio clip in which Mamata was heard cajoling a BJP leader from Nandigram to help her win the seat, she said that she had indeed called him up after learning that he wanted to talk to her. “I told him to keep well, to take care of his health. So what is my crime?” the TMC supremo said.

    “As a candidate of the constituency, I can seek the help of any voter, I can call up anyone. There is no harm in that,” the TMC supremo said. “If someone makes the conversation viral, that is an offence. Action should be taken against those who did that.”

    A controversy erupted amid the first phase of polling after BJP released an audio clip in which Mamata was heard talking to a former TMC leader who has joined BJP. “You should help us win Nandigram. I know you have some grievances, but that’s due mostly to the Adhikaris who didn’t let me come here.”